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Bay County resident urges commissioners to reject Flock Security, cites privacy and breach risks
Summary
Jerith Dietrich urged Bay County commissioners to reject any contract with Flock Security, saying centralized camera datasets are vulnerable to breaches and alleging the company markets facial-recognition capabilities; he recommended local data storage, mutual TLS, and a contract ban on facial recognition including third parties.
Jerith Dietrich, a software engineer who identified himself during public comment, urged the Bay County Board of Commissioners to reject any Flock Security product, saying the company’s centralized camera network and data practices pose unacceptable privacy and security risks.
"I would request that you vote no on any FLOC security product," Dietrich said, reading prepared remarks that cataloged what he called the company’s inconsistent messaging about whether it uses AI and facial recognition. He warned a large centralized dataset is "a matter of when and not if" it will be breached and cited recent industry reporting on service-desk compromises and other breaches.
Dietrich recounted reporting and examples he said show misuse of camera networks and downstream processing, including a May 2025 report he referenced from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and local reporting he said concerned searches of Flock’s nationwide network by law enforcement. "These types of abuses already exist for you and your constituents," he said, and flagged the risk that third-party processors could apply facial-recognition software to stored images.
He proposed specific mitigations the county could require if it chose to proceed with any contract: a physically isolated, county-only data store; two-way SSL (mutual certificate authentication) rather than password-only access; and contract language that explicitly bans facial recognition for any purpose, including by third-party processors.
The board did not take immediate procurement action during the public-comment period. Commissioners thanked Dietrich for his testimony before moving to the rest of the agenda.
